Lisa Phu, KTOO - Juneau

The Juneau School District has spent at least $20,000 investigating and dealing with last May’s hazing incident where seven incoming seniors paddled six incoming freshmen. The district took disciplinary action, which resulted in one student appeal. The school board will decide tonight (Tuesday) behind closed doors what to do with the student grievance. The school district is trying to move forward proactively.

Students at the University of Alaska Southeast will get a chance to talk to federal auditors about sexual assault on campus.

The Department of Education’s Office of Civil Rights will be at the UAS Juneau campus Friday as part of an examination of the university’s handling of complaints and reports of sexual harassment and violence.

Alaska writers and naturalists Richard Nelson and Hank Lentfer are nearing the end of a two-year project recording the “Voices of Glacier Bay.” The project is a collaboration between Glacier Bay National Park and Preserve, University of Alaska Southeast and Cornell University, which houses the world’s largest collection of natural sounds. Nelson and Lentfer hope to change how others experience the world through a dimension beyond what we can see. They want us to listen and listen closely.

Experts often refer to the first several weeks of college for new students as the “red zone” – a time when they’re more likely to be sexually assaulted. The University of Alaska system is on a list of 79 post-secondary schools being investigated by the U.S. Department of Education for compliance with sexual assault laws or violations.

The last cruise ship to visit the capital city pulls out of Juneau at 9 p.m. Thursday. As stores in the tourist district pack up and shut down for the fall and winter season, the Juneau Economic Development Council wants to make sure downtown remains an inviting place to be.

Absentee voting for the October 7 municipal election begins today at City Hall and Mendenhall Mall. Juneau residents will choose three Assembly and two school board members, and decide on one ballot proposition. Last week, Thunder Mountain High School students had a lesson in civic engagement. The American government class took a field trip to the Juneau Votes Forum at UAS where they posed questions to the candidates.

The U.S. Department of Education’s Civil Rights Office will be visiting four campuses of the University of Alaska next month to check if the school is handling sexual violence complaints according to federal law.

The University of Alaska system is on a list of 79 post-secondary institutions around the nation being investigated for possible violations, but university officials aren’t sure why.

Members of the public criticized how the Juneau School District handled a hazing incident in May that involved seven seniors paddling six incoming freshmen. During Tuesday’s school board meeting, they said the perceived punishment of the offenders wasn’t harsh enough.

Meanwhile, a state education official commended the district for trying to change the culture of hazing.

As early as the late 1700s, European visitors and explorers in Alaska wrongly took objects that were sacred and important to the indigenous people. Several of these items were set to be auctioned off in Paris last December, despite protest from tribal groups around the U.S. It was a done deal, until an anonymous buyer stepped in.

Classes for the fall semester started Tuesday at University of Alaska Southeast. More than 2,000 undergraduate and graduate students are currently enrolled at the university’s Juneau campus. About a hundred freshmen have settled into campus life at UAS’s new residence hall. The $14.3 million facility opened at the end of August.

After concluding an investigation into an alleged hazing incident, the Juneau School District has identified seven high school seniors who participated in the paddling of six incoming freshmen. The incident took place shortly after school ended in May.

Its prime time for gardens in Alaska and there are plenty of plants and veggies that thrive this far north. Basil, though, is not one of them – it needs more heat and sun – two things that are especially hard to find in the Southeast rainforest of Juneau. But two local guys have figured out a unique way to bring basil to the masses.

Russian Orthodox funeral services are pending for former Alaska poet laureate Richard Dauenhauer who died Tuesday. Dauenhauer was known for many things, including poetry, translation and teaching. He was also the husband of Tlingit scholar and Alaska writer laureate Nora Marks Dauenhauer. For more than 40 years, they had a partnership of marriage and scholarship.

The million dollar steel float in Gustavus was less than two years old when a storm ripped it from its piling in January. Seven months later, the state still doesn’t know what caused the failure and doesn’t have funds to replace it.